


five years dead and gone

by redledgers



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Dark, Family, Gen, pre briarwood arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 02:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10957785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redledgers/pseuds/redledgers
Summary: she has died and been reborn, and she is theirs now.





	five years dead and gone

It’s dark in Whitestone castle. It’s always dark these days, haunted by ghoulish figures and waifs, the type that shy at candlelight and keep to shadows. Every morning is the same: she is roused from fitful slumber, dressed in high-neck lace gowns, and uncomfortable everything. The white hair at her temples has spread; what was once a souvenir of death now a defining feature.

She sits at breakfast and wishes the table were longer, wishes she could be as far away as possible from these people. But over time, the resentment fades, chipped away and discarded until she doesn’t flinch when Delilah brushes out her hair before bed. The servants have mostly gone, replaced by fiends and staggering undead. Only, Delilah’s hands are a pleasant cold, gentle and sinister, and _something else_. Over time, the walls seems tighter, the once sprawling rooms more claustrophobic, yet she has no desire to leave the stone walls. She imagines sometimes that her hands are cold, pale and lifeless.

In the evenings, she becomes a wraith, unable to sleep, and so she wanders the halls of her once called home and only stops when Sylas or Delilah find her. (Delilah is kinder, escorting her back to her room, running a hand through her hair until she falls asleep. Sylas is cold and demanding, but in a subtle way. He will never be her father.)

During the day, she eventually spends time with Delilah in the workshop (repurposed from her family, from her brother, and she tries not to think about what had been done to both of them before they ran, before, when they had hope). There are the finer points of magic she grasps slowly, but she learns the rest quickly. Delilah teaches her corruption and deception, dark things that become useful after they’ve seeped into her. In the way she would have been groomed to have some position in Whitestone before this all, so Delilah teaches her to be a Briarwood.

A young mind finds solace in understanding darkness, understanding how to control the very thing that destroyed her. She feels loved, receives more attention than she did as the youngest of seven children, and she learns her people.

She spreads maps out on the table, draws with her finger across carefully inked parchment. “They’re organizing here,” she says, looking through the candlelit space toward her mother. “After the harvest, just after dusk.” Her finger traces a path through the Parchwood. “And here is where they’ll set the fire.” At the base of the castle, where the woods meet the stone, is an old store of firewood, sheltered from harsh winters.

Delilah crosses the room and lays a hand on her shoulder. “And you will lead them there,” she says calmly. She presses a chilly kiss to Cassandra’s temple. “Thank you, my dear.”

Sylas chuckles low from where he stands. “You’re doing well, pup.” To receive a compliment from him should have filled her with unease. Instead, she feels something else from the pride in his voice. Belonging, perhaps. The destruction of doubt.

The night when they stop the rebellion (that she started, that she led, that they stopped because of her), Delilah surprises her with small cakes and sweet wine, and presents her with a book. It’s like her birthday (it is her birthday, one year since she’s been resurrected) and it feels only a little wrong. Yet she enjoys it all, enjoys the fond pet names and love, and the creeping darkness that encircles her ankles grows stronger.

“You’re a lady now,” Delilah tells her one evening as she combs out Cass’s hair. “I’m very proud of you, Cassie.” The nickname feels as harsh as Sylas’s fanged smile, but she accepts it because of course mother, she is a lady, thank you very much. She begins to see some of Delilah’s cheekbones in her own face and in the lighting, their hair is almost the same color save for the white streaks. Delilah’s hands falter over them sometimes. But she recovers with a smile and a soft pat to the top of Cass’s head.

Cassandra cannot sleep once again that night.

 

  

It’s dark in Whitestone castle. It’s always dark these days. The project below, in the ziggurat, is made wretched with bodies, the people of the city lose hope, and her loyalty grows stronger. She remains the ghost that wanders the halls, catches glimpses of what she thinks might be her family’s spirits, broken and howling but she can’t be sure (she can’t find that memory no matter how hard she looks).

On Winter’s Crest, she wears a dress that matches her mother’s, all dark lace and brocade, and it’s _cold_. She sits at dinner at a table that is not long enough to separate her from the chill in the air, the one that has pervaded the castle for years, and she thinks perhaps this is her last year. But her magic is more powerful and Delilah croons _“Soon, my darling Cassie, soon”_ every night even though she is too old to be tucked in. It is less comfort and more an assurance that she is here, she remains, and she is not leaving.

In the basement, Ripley languishes, failed and directionless with the absence of Percy and the withholding of the last de Rolo. In the basement, she withers, and Cassandra laughs because the Briarwoods have no use of her now in her madness. But still they let her live, because they do not care.

“I am a Briarwood now,” she says, and she means it, stands behind the venom she spews. For five years they have been there for her, for five years they have groomed her and taught her, and she is theirs now. Their Cassie. (For years afterward she wakes screaming because a part of her will always be theirs.) For five years, she has lived a new life, and for five years she has been dead.

**Author's Note:**

> fight me at buckysleftarm


End file.
